"What do _you_ know about conscience?" Deirdre demanded. "Conscience is a much more complex mechanism than most laymen realize. Guilt feelings aren't reliable criteria. They can stem from false causes--from ridiculous things like a person's inability to accept himself for what he is." Abruptly she dropped the subject. "Don't you realize, Nate," she went on a little desperately, "that I'm leaving tomorrow and that we won't see each other again for years and years?" "I'll come to New Earth to visit you," Blake said. "Venus is only a few days distant on the new ships." She stood up. "You won't come--I know you won't." She stamped her foot. "And you won't come to the prom either. I know that too. I knew it all along. Sometimes I'm tempted to--" Abruptly she broke off. "Very well then," she went on, "I'll say good-by now then." Blake Past stood up too. "No, not yet. I'll walk back to the sorority house with you." She tossed her head, but the sadness in her tarn-blue eyes belied her hauteur. "If you wish," she said. * * * * * Blake Present watched them set out side by side toward the remembered halls of learning that showed in the distance. There had been other people present on the campus that afternoon, but as they had failed to register on Blake Past's mind, they did not exist for Blake Present. All that existed for Blake Present were the diminishing figures of the girl and the man, and the pain that was constricting his throat. Wretchedly he turned away. As he did so he saw the three shadows lying at his feet and knew that his pursuers had at last caught up to him. His first reaction when he faced them was amazement. His next reaction was shock. His third was fear. His amazement resulted from recognition. One of the three women arrayed before him was Miss Stoddart, his boyhood Sunday-school teacher. Standing next to her in a familiar blue uniform was Officer Finch, the police woman who had maintained law and order in the collective elementary school he had attended. Standing next to Officer Finch was blond and chic Vera Velvetskin, whose picture he had seen on box after countless box of his mother's favorite detergent. His shock resulted from the expressions on the three faces. Neither Miss Stoddart nor Officer Finch ever particularly liked him, but they had never particularly disliked him either. This Miss Stoddart and this Officer Finch disliked him, though. They hated him. They hated him so much that their hatred had thinned out their faces and darkened their eyes. More shocking yet, Vera Velvetskin, who had never existed save in some copywriter's mind, hated him too. In fact, judging from the greater thinness of her face and the more pronounced darkness of her eyes, she hated him even more than Miss Stoddart and Officer Finch did.